Holocene large lake development and desiccation: Changing habitats in the Kharga Basin of the Egyptian Sahara

Abstract

The Sahara Desert, known today as one of the world's great wildernesses, was periodically dotted with large lakes that formed during the Holocene pluvial periods. As the lakes dried, the fertile and flat‐lying damp muds formed a rich habitat that was occupied by human settlers before being abandoned, as the area dried out completely. In Kharga, our work shows that a combination of pluvial periods with short term storage in the Upper Nubian aquifer, access to artesian water in the Lower Nubian Aquifer and over‐flow water from the Nile via the Wadi Toshka created a biodiverse environment which, although drier today, sustained refugia of plants and animals throughout the Holocene.

Echoes of the Past: Unveiling the Kharga Oasis’ Cultural Heritage and Climate Vulnerability through Millennia

“…According to Linstädter and Kröpelin [54], rainfall was infrequent but intense, with an estimated occurrence rate of approximately four times per century. During the early to middle Holocene epoch, the Kharga Oasis was marked by the existence of a multitude of shallow freshwater bodies [8,24,33,35,[55][56][57][58]. The presence of these freshwater bodies on the surface proved to be a significant draw for both livestock and agricultural laborers.…”

“…This theory builds upon previous research findings and incorporates the analysis of rock art and insights recorded by prehistoric Egyptians regarding their lifestyle, economic activities, cultural practices, climatic conditions, and environmental changes during the Holocene. This approach allows to bridge the current research gap by collecting available paleoclimate data from the Middle Holocene in the Kharga Oasis, providing a detailed account of the temporal, social, and spatial context of regional cultural and civilized activities when the Oasis was generally habitable between 7500 and 12,000 BP [1,2,6,6,9,17,19,20,25,30,[33][34][35][36].…”

The palaeoenvironmental potential of the eastern Jordanian desert basins (Qe'an)

“…There is evidence for green, or greener, environments in the early Holocene, or for increased precipitation at this time, for much of the wider region surrounding the eastern Badia, from the Sahara (e.g. Kuper and Kr¨opelin, 2006;Bunbury et al, 2020;Van Neer et al, 2020),…”